PWA member, Catriona Wallis, is the founder of an IT startup, Colto which has been selected as a finalist in the 2012 Mind the Bridge Seed Quest competition. Colto is developing mobile Apps and widgets for Smart TV in which kids learn languages by having fun playing digital games & competing in live online races against friends and other users. Catriona describes Colto as “a ground-breaking new entertainment experience for kids aged 5-12 years where the concept is they’re having so much fun playing, they don’t even know they’re learning!”.

Mind the Bridge hosts the Seed Quest competition annually with the ultimate aim of providing a bridge to Silicon Valley for five of the best Italian startups. In September 22 startups were selected in the first round of semi-finalists and invited to attend a 2 day Boot Camp of mentoring and networking in Trento, the Dolomites. Each of the startups were given 5 minutes to pitch their project to an audience of international experts in the IT industry who then mentored them and trained the teams in pitching skills. Catriona describes her experience at Boot Camp as ‘mentally intensive and an incredibly rapid learning curve’ adding that ‘in just 48 hours we learnt so much from the mentors about where our project should be heading and received advice that probably saved us from failing in the first year of operation’.

Colto is now among the 12-15 finalists that have been selected to pitch at the Mind the Bridge Venture Camp to be held at the Corriere della Sera’s offices in Milan on 26-27 October. A week after the event, five winners will be announced and each will receive funding from the Mind the Seed Foundation of 65,000 USD and a 3 month incubation and mentoring programme in Silicon Valley, US.

Congratulations and good luck, Catriona!